and windows.[129]

Thus was fulfilled the prophecy which eight years previously Burke had
made in his immortal work on the French Revolution. That great thinker
had predicted that French liberty would fall a victim to the first
great general who drew the eyes of all men upon himself. "The moment
in which that event shall happen, the person who really commands the
army is your master, the master of your king, the master of your
Assembly, the master of your whole republic."

Discussions about the _coup d'etat_ of Brumaire generally confuse the
issue at stake by ignoring the difference between the overthrow of the
Directory and that of the Legislature. The collapse of the Directory
was certain to take place; but few expected that the Legislature of
France would likewise vanish. For vanish it did: not for nearly half
a century had France another free and truly democratic representative
assembly. This result of Brumaire was unexpected by several of the men
who plotted the overthrow of unpopular Directors, and hoped for the
nipping of Jacobinical or royalist designs. Indeed, no event in French
history is more astonishing than the dispersal of the republican
deputies, most of whom desired a change of _personnel_ but not a
revolution in methods of government. Until a few days previously the
Councils had the allegiance of the populace and of the soldiers; the
troops at St. Cloud were loyal to the constitution, and respected the
persons of the deputies until they were deluded by Lucien. For a few
minutes the fate of France trembled in the balance; and the
conspirators knew it.[130] Bonaparte confessed it by his incoherent
gaspings; Sieyes had his carriage ready, with six horses, for flight;
the terrible cry, "Hors la loi!" if raised against Bonaparte in the
heart of Paris, would certainly have roused the populace to fury in
the cause of liberty and have swept the conspirators to the
guillotine. But, as it was, the affair was decided in the solitudes of
St. Cloud by Lucien and a battalion of soldiers.

Efforts have frequently been made to represent the events of Brumaire
as inevitable and to dovetail them in with a pretended philosophy of
history. But it is impossible to study them closely without observing
how narrow was the margin between the success and failure of the plot,
and how jagged was the edge of an affair which philosophizers seek to
fit in with their symmetrical explanations. In truth, no event of
world-wide import